Design - In the Dark

One of the big plusses for MadCatz using membrane switches is that it allowed them to use full backlight illumination. Their execution is flawless, as the backlight is evenly lit and well-diffused, so it's not an eyesore glaring up at you. The different colors are vibrant, and you have a nearly-unlimited number of color variations to choose from. The caps, num, and screen lock keys have a red LED, and the windows keys glow with MadCatz' logo. The lighting of the keys also looks great, and the backlighting doesn't overwhelm being able to clearly see the keys themselves.

The OLED display has great contrast and very nice colors (which bleed a little bit in the pictures since I used a relatively long exposure). The media keys and the 9 macro keys are also backlit with a white light. A red LED backlight highlights which of the three available profiles is selected, and a red-backlit key toggles backlight illumination on and off as you desire. The Windows key is also contained on the command module, and is green when the Windows key is active, and red when it's deactivated for "gaming mode." We'll be talking about the function of the E.Y.E. in detail on the next page.